After reading the first three articles, have you already made your baby's work schedule?
Links to the first three articles.
Angel baby raising (1) - Preparation
Angel baby raising (2) - Theory of regular work and rest
Angel baby raising (3) - Regular work and rest training in practice
The most difficult part of the process is sleep, and it can be said that most of mothers' energy is spent on their babies' sleep. If your baby can sleep on his or her own, it will be easy to take care of him or her.
Part 1. General Principles
- Reference books
“On Becoming Babywise”
“Secrets of the Baby Whisperer”
“the Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems”
“Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child”
The above are the main reference books for the theoretical knowledge involved in this article, so they are not specifically marked in the text. If you have time, you can choose one or two books to buy and read, and you will definitely gain.
- Reasons why infants have difficulty falling asleep and wake up easily
A. Infants lack the ability to fall asleep on their own
The ability to fall asleep on their own is an ability that needs to be learned through guidance and training. Adults basically already have the ability to fall asleep on their own (except for some insomniacs). It is very easy to neglect the development of the baby's ability to fall asleep on their own. The first year with a child can be said to be more than 50% of the hard work is due to the difficulty of putting to sleep, easy to wake up, waking up many times during the night. And many mothers intentionally or unintentionally on the road to cuddle sleep, milk sleep. Cuddling or milk sleep is not impossible, but after a long time to become a habit, not only is the mother exhausted and depressed, the baby's sleep quality will also decline. As the saying goes, "it is better to teach someone to fish than to teach someone to fish". To give your baby guidance to develop the ability to fall asleep on their own is a precious gift to your baby.
B. Moro Reflex
Moro Reflex in infants is actually a common phenomenon in the neonatal period. In medical terms, it is a physiological manifestation. The presence of unconscious shaking of the limbs and body in newborns is often referred to as startle jumping. This behavior is due to the infant's self-protective response to the outside world. The phenomenon of startled jumping in newborns is mainly due to the imperfect development of the nervous system, immaturity of the cerebral cortex, and high excitability of central nerve cells, which are easily stimulated to cause excitement. The newborn baby, the body's nerve fibers can not fully form a certain reaction conditions, the development is not complete, so after a little sound stimulation will also appear limb twitching situation. This is the baby received the stimulus can not be transmitted to the brain for judgment as adults, so that the limbs shaking will occur. With the continuous development of the baby, the internal systems of the body will gradually improve, will slowly be able to consciously face a variety of situations, and not so sensitive to the sound outside or even hear the sudden sound will be scared to cry. There will also be a gradual reduction in the phenomenon of jumping on all fours.
The startle reaction often leads to the results of the mothers' hard work to put them to sleep for half a day to be lost.
There are three solutions.
a. A mother's hand to gently soothe the baby's body or hands to create a sense of security that can calm him down.
b. The use of swaddle wraps.
c. As the baby gets older, the startle response will disappear.
C. Shallow and deep sleep transition
It is very easy for your baby to wake up during the transition between light and dark sleep. Don't rush to pick up your baby or feed him/her at this time. Wait a little and observe. Your baby may wiggle his head and wave his hands and transition to the next sleep cycle. Minimize manual intervention. If your baby cries, gently pat him or her down and he or she will soon be in the next sleep cycle.
- Sleeping principle
Many parenting books provide ready-made methods to put your baby to sleep. But many mothers find that the method does not apply to their own babies. So use some easy to develop the habit of dependence on the way to put to sleep. In fact, each baby has specific difficulties and characteristics of each family. The problem is often not solved according to their own characteristics. If you want to be successful in putting your baby to sleep, you must first know the principles behind these methods of putting your baby to sleep and integrate them. And then combine it with your own baby's characteristics and make improvements. Create your own baby's good sleep pattern, and then transition to sleep on their own.
If you want to put your baby to sleep successfully, you must first ensure that your baby's sleep environment is comfortable, seize the time to fall asleep, ensure that your baby is emotionally stable, divert your attention to make your baby feel bored, slowly close your eyes into sleep mode, consolidate your sleep, and pick up your sleep in time.
Recognizing the principle of lulling to sleep, the use of lulling artifacts and improved methods of lulling to sleep are all designed to ensure that the baby's mood is smooth and attention is shifted. So no matter what method or magic tool is used, the most crucial point is whether it can achieve the two goals of making your baby "emotionally stable and distracted". Keeping in mind the principle of putting to sleep, there is no need to follow the book one by one, nor can you expect to buy all the magic tools piled up on the child's bed so that everything will be fine without putting to sleep. Treat this matter of putting to sleep, can not hold the mentality of quick success. Be prepared for a long war! Single time rely on luck, long-term rely on persistence!
- Steps to put your baby to sleep
A. Bedtime signals and time to fall asleep: baby is irritable, scratching ears, rubbing eyes, yawning for the first time, grunting,etc. When you see these signals, please put your baby to bed immediately! Putting your baby to bed in time when bedtime signals appear will be easy to succeed. If the baby starts crying, often already sleepy, missed the best and easiest golden time to put to sleep, the difficulty of putting to sleep increases steeply. For a baby who has a regular schedule, according to his schedule, the mother can anticipate the baby's sleep time and put the baby to bed earlier. (clickhere to see the theory and practice of regular rest) Regular rest can also fix the baby's daily bedtime, to develop a biological clock, so that the baby needs to sleep when the point is sleepy.
B. Sleeping environment: It is recommended that babies sleep independently in cribs, so that they can get a good foundation for sleeping independently in the future. Check whether there are any safety hazards in the bed. Check whether the thickness of the baby's bedding is appropriate. Too hot or too cold can easily cause your baby to wake up repeatedly. Daytime naps do not have to deliberately create a particularly quiet or dark environment (but also do not have to deliberately noisy or bright light), to strengthen the baby's ability to resist interference. At night to ensure a quiet and dark sleep environment, as long as the baby does not wake up crying after falling asleep do not interfere too much with the baby's sleep, directly after feeding the milk put to bed, do not change diapers in the middle of the night.
C. Establish a fixed bedtime ritual: daytime naps can be done by wearing a sleeping bag, stuffing a pacifier, turning off the lights and turning on the music white noise as a bedtime ritual. And night sleep can be through swimming, bathing, touch massage, wearing a sleeping bag, turn off the lights, turn on the white noise, timed night light, storytelling and other ways as a bedtime ritual.
D. Smooth emotions and distractions: Make sure your baby's emotions are smooth by shaking hands, patting and coaxing, white noise, etc. Grunting and crying does not require picking up. If your baby starts to cry very excitedly, the more he cries the louder he gets, and his emotions get out of control, you can pick him up in time to soothe and stabilize his emotions before putting him back to bed. Note: Not to pick up and put to sleep all the time! It is to hold up the emotionally stable immediately after put back, let the baby in bed to sleep! You can use pacifiers, soothing towels, and crib mobile to divert your baby's attention and soothe his or her emotions. For neonates can also use swaddle bags, wrapped around the baby's hands to prevent jumping awake.
E. Consolidate sleep: just because your baby's eyes are closed doesn't mean that sleeping is over. It is still easy to wake up when your baby's eyes are just closed. Be sure to insist on patting and coaxing, white noise and other ways to put your baby to sleep until you hear a slight snore or confirm that your baby is asleep and then gradually and slowly stop putting him to sleep.
F. Timely continuingsleep: Baby's sleep is divided into one sleep cycle after another. Deep sleep and light sleep are constantly changing in the sleep cycle. And when the previous cycle is transitioning to the next cycle, babies are very easy to wake up. This is why newborns can easily sleep for 20-30 minutes, and older babies may be able to sleep for about 40 minutes before waking up and crying. At this point the baby has not slept enough, but it is very difficult to put them to sleep again. So be sure to helpyour baby continuing sleeping in time before he or she wakes up and cries. You can observe your baby for a day or two to see how long he usually wakes up after sleeping, and find out the pattern. Then intervene before he wakes up to help him transition to the next sleep cycle. (There will be a special topic on the specific method of picking up sleep later)
Part2. the method of putting to sleep
From the low level to the advanced way to put to sleep in the following order: (Only an introduction, the following specific steps please refer to its related books.
- milk sleep
On the "chest" is definitely a tried and true magic weapon to quickly stop crying and put to sleep. But there are hazards: disrupting the baby's routine, the baby's digestive cycle is unstable. The baby likes to eat "snack feeding", can not develop a regular routine. The baby's sense of security rests on the breast, and other soothing methods fail. Other members of the family are unable to put the baby to sleep, and the pressure of putting the baby to sleep is all on the mother. The mother wakes up easily in the middle of the night and has to put on a breast device to solve the problem of frequent night waking. The mother cannot rest well, the baby cannot sleep long, and the whole family is irritable.
- Hold to sleep
Cuddling baby is very secure, can sleep smoothly. But cuddling is not a long-term solution. First of all, after the baby has developed the habit of cuddling, it is easy to "put down and cry". Can not develop the ability to fall asleep on their own. In addition, the baby is growing, the growth of weight on the mother's physical strength is a great test.
- Shaking to sleep
Shaking to sleep, especially shaking the head. Babies sometimes seem to be put to sleep, but in fact they are shaken. The baby's brain is still not well developed, and it goes without saying that shaking sleep is harmful to the brain. But many elderly people will use this way and hold sleep combined, but also think they sleep very good, this is definitely a misconception, must be stopped in time.
- Stroller coaxing
Some babies in the baby stroller, or in the car seat, will soon fall asleep. In fact, this way to break it down is: shaking + white noise, the baby will quickly fall asleep. The method can be used, but only for a short time, not a long-term solution. After all, the safety seat and stroller is not a reasonable environment for the baby to sleep, in addition to each sleep in the car is not realistic.
- Cry immunity method
Cry-immune method that put the baby in bed and leave him alone. Let him cry, he will sleep when he is tired of crying, and slowly he will not cry himself to sleep. It is an abhorrent method for many mothers, and the extremes have developed to the point where some mothers believe that sleep training or regular rest is equivalent to cry immunity. And they refuse to guide their babies to sleep on their own. In fact, this is wrong. The cry-immune method is just one of the many ways to put your baby to sleep. It is known for its fast results, according to the book, about 1 week can be effective, the baby can quickly learn to fall asleep on their own. But the price is the psychological damage that can be caused by a baby crying more than once. Ima is not particularly in favor of extreme cry-immunization, especially not for newborns, so try a more gentle approach. However, it is also said to be suitable for babies over 6 months of age.
- Farber method
A modified version of the cry-immunization method. The idea is that the baby is not completely left alone when he cries. Instead, return at regular intervals of roughly 3, 5, 10 minutes to check the baby's condition. Through music, patting and other simple soothing methods, avoid picking up until sleep. This method may lengthen the crying time and requires great patience and restraint on the part of the parents. But this method is still very effective for some babies, you can develop the ability to fall asleep on their own through this method, it is recommended to try to adjust and improve on their own.
- Pick up and put down method
The focus of the pick up and put down method is to pick up your baby when he or she is crying. When the baby does not cry, put it back to bed, and so on and so forth. Emphasize that holding is only a means of soothing emotions, sleep or the baby to sleep on their own. Maybe the first few times you use this method, it takes more than half an hour just to put your baby to sleep. The mother's physical strength and patience is a great test. But in the long run there are still many mothers who successfully train their babies to fall asleep on their own through this method. It is suitable for babies over 3 months old.
This method can be improved for the baby emotional out of control cry when picking up, grunting small cry when combined with Faber method in bed to soothe.
- Electric cradle to sleep
Electric cradle is fully functional, timed, fixed-amplitude frequency, music, white noise, turning bell toys and other multifunctional set. In France, the popularity is very high, especially to solve the problem of baby naps during the day, the absolute magic weapon. But generally used as a transition through the work and rest, it is not recommended to rely on the cradle to sleep for a long time. Some friends say, not shaking sleep is not good for the brain? In fact, the electric cradle is designed to swing the baby's entire body, rather than head shaking, in addition to the frequency amplitude manufacturers have taken into account, it can be said that it is still very safe. Just for childcare aspects of the new exotic, similar to: pacifiers, soothing towels, cradles and so on. Many people will be honey confident the first time to find a variety of reasons to question and refuse. So accept it or not can only be seen on their own, not to explain.
- Hush pat method
As the name implies, is to make a "shhhh" sound while patting the baby. To achieve the effect of lulling to sleep, especially effective for babies under three months. The specific method will not be repeated, there are various teaching videos online can search.
- White noise method
Hair dryer sound, the sound of running water, the sound of waves and other such white noise can help babies fall asleep quickly. Because white noise simulates the sound heard by the baby in the mother's womb, making the baby feel safe. There are many white noise apps that moms can download and use. Be careful to control the volume so as not to hurt your baby's ears. Suitable for babies under 3 months of age.
First of all, let's emphasize one thing: the sleeper is just a tool to assist your baby to fall asleep faster. You can't expect to achieve the effect of not needing to put your baby to sleep with one or several tools. The most important thing is the patience of the mother. There is no need to buy all of them, and the presence or absence of them does not affect the results of lulling to sleep to sleep on their own, and may delay the development of the ability to fall asleep on their own. So all mothers choose as needed. In addition, the god of sleep is also to "will use" to play an effective. Not to use or inappropriate timing occasion use may lead to failure or baby dependence difficult to quit, resulting in new problems.
In the future, there will be a special topic on the use of soothing objects to write about.
- Pacifier: Use a pacifier with a flat base to prevent leaving red marks on the baby's face.
- Soothing towel: choose a soft soothing towel that does not shed hair, can have a corner that can be grasped, and can also have a label to attract the baby's attention.
- Swaddle bag: recommended swaddle me, HALO sleeping bag.
- Electric cradle: can be used as a daytime nap to put to sleep transition. Recommended Fisher Price.
- Cribmobile:can be selected with the following features: night light, white noise + music mode, automatic timing off and cry sensing function to help sleep.
- Egg-shaped womb bed: recommended red castle, babymoov.
- Monitor: monitor placed at the head of the baby's bed, you can remotely monitor the baby's sleep condition after he or she falls asleep and pick up the sleep in time. You can also wait for a few minutes to determine whether to intervene through the monitor when the baby is sleeping restlessly, instead of rushing forward to pick up and wake the baby. You can also observe whether the person taking care of the baby instead of the mother is taking reasonable care of the baby when the mother is not at home. If you want your baby to fall asleep on his or her own, you must slowly reduce manual intervention in your baby's sleep, and in this regard, the monitor can be a "magic tool" to free your hands!
The next article will share my whole experience without reservation, welcome to stay tuned.
The end
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